Great Russian language

Great Russian language (Russian: Великорусский язык, Velikorusskiy yazyk) is a name given in the 19th century to the Russian language as opposed to the other two major East Slavic languages: Belarusian and Little Russian/Ukrainian. For instance, Vladimir Dahl's monumental dictionary of the Russian language is titled "The Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian Language".

By the standards prevalent in 19th-century Imperial Russia, many scholars did not distinguish between the East Slavic languages spoken within the borders of the Russian Empire. The East Slavic languages were claimed to be mutually intelligible, a position since called into question.

The Great Russian, or just Russian, language was formed in the Late Middle Ages in the northern Russian principalities under heavy influence of Church Slavonic language. As compared to the Great Russian, other Eastern Slavonic languages were termed one-dimensional because they lacked the stratum of high speech, derived from the Church Slavonic. For political reasons, the literary Russian language evolved under the significant influence of the Moscow dialect. (See East Slavic languages and Russian language for more detailed information.)